Legislature can use fresh faces and ideas

Wednesday

Dec 30, 2009 at 12:01 AMDec 30, 2009 at 10:39 AM

Dispatch Senior Editor Joe Hallett wrote his second derisive column this year bemoaning the establishment of term limits some years ago for our Ohio legislators ("Term limits get in the way of lawmakers seeing big picture," Dec. 20).

Dispatch Senior Editor Joe Hallett wrote his second derisive column this year bemoaning the establishment of term limits some years ago for our Ohio legislators ("Term limits get in the way of lawmakers seeing big picture," Dec. 20).

Hallett conveniently forgets the admonitions of our Founding Fathers, specifically Thomas Jefferson. Legislators should come to the state capitol from all walks of life to serve the people who elected them, to the very best of their abilities.

It was never the intention in America's history for a legislator to make a long, remunerative and influential career in this capacity.

Let us not demean the intelligence, efforts and capabilities of our newer legislators. Most have gone to a great deal of effort and expense to work for what they deeply believe in.

Mercifully, the days of a Vernal G. Riffe Jr., 20-year Democratic speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, are long gone. With the protection of term limits, few can make the system work for them, wield unconscionable power, enjoy financial perks and retire with generous publicly funded pensions.

Our newer representatives, as in any field, can bring fresh, innovative ideas to the legislature. They are not so bogged down with precedent, procedure or whose back they have scratched.